Things that I love – Part 300
big wide open peaceful spaces
I love this picture. Look how thin I look (ha ha). You can click on it to look at it better.
This picture was taken off Mboye Island, off Dar. It is part of a marine reserve and the island was completely deserted except for the 6 of us! wow. such an awesome experience.
Look at the beautiful clean blue water. Stunning. We actually saw dolphins jump right out of it! wow. This photo just captures the meaning of the word, Dar es Salaam – “haven of peace.”
Purty. I feel relaxed just looking at it and remembering the warm water and colourful fish.
Final Days of Dar
Final Days
Outwit, outplay, outlast
Well, even though it seems like it, the whole experience to Dar es Salaam was not ALL bad.
I have started receiving emails from delegates who complimented me on the “serene” atmosphere of the conference (clearly having all the conference organisers sweating buckets and breathing red in the face is classified as serene in Dar..) and the general overall consensus is the conference was a success, despite our shipment being pilfered, the rats stealing delegate’s food off their plates (ok, I made that one up….) and the general unavoidable mishaps. I think my mind may have blocked it all out and now I only remember the good things, kind of like PTSD…
Good times included the discovery that I actually like beer. I never have before. But when in Dar, there was not much else to drink… and man, did I need an alcoholic beverage! So I have sampled my fair share of Tusker and Kilimanjaro beer (available in 500ml; no ice). Pretty good. Nice to have a whole new range of beverages to sample..
I also got to spend time with my assistant Charlotte, who has been interning here in SA for 8 months. She leaves next week and I am really going to miss her. She had such a positive impact on our office and was lots of fun – in Dar, the night the conference ended, we raced into the hotel pool in the middle of the night and jumped in with all our clothes! Just because 
We also spent a long, lazy afternoon in the warm Indian Ocean looking for shells. The tide goes out so far that you can walk out for a kilometre and still not get deeper than your knees. But it was a great experience – sitting in the warm (like bathwater) blue, tropical water for over 2 hours, looking for shells on the seabed and allowing our minds to decompress the experience of the past stressful week. We all ended up finding sand-dollars and cowries, which should I have the energy one day, I will make into a bracelet.
Saturday night saw the whole conference team getting completely plastered on local beer at the hotel beach party, subsequently hijacking the DJ box with our own conference AV equipment and showing Charlotte how to lang-arm-sokkie-sokkie to classic SA hits like my-rooi-rok-bokkie! All the South African’s in the hotel came out of the hotel for a bit of a local jol! It was a pretty surreal experience to be rocking out to Bryan Adam’s “Summer of 69” right on the beach, the sand between my toes and looking up unfamiliar stars (skyline is very different from here at night).
Sunday saw our departure from Dar, but not before a quick trip to the marine park by boat for a few hours of snorkelling. Again, warm, clear blue water, palm trees, hammocks – two dolphins even made an appear to round off the truly stereotypical island paradise! We spent the morning on a deserted , protected island and snorkelled amongst some of the most beautiful and colourful fish I have ever seen in my life. It was a lovely ending to a very stressful experience!
And most importantly, I also got to see a place that was different to my home and appreciate how lekker South Africa and our people really are! After being bombarded by rude African delegates, harassed at the Dar airport by officials that clearly just wanted to upset the blonde bird, offering my passport at SA border control was the best experience of my life. Guys, SA has its moments for sure, but wow I live in a great country – with people who are friendly (most of them); with a strong cultural heritage that is unmatched and who just emit such a positive feeling it’s hard to contain!
Pretty much my feelings for SA are summed up in this moment I experienced at the OR Thambo Vida E…
After 9 days of putting up with (what I felt) was solid, rude, aggressive and unfriendly African behaviour, I wearily trudged to Vida E while waiting for my flight to board. I was standing at the counter, about to place my order when the barista shot me the most amazing smile and asked me where I was coming/going. Lord, the first friendly stranger in days! He listened to my whole palaver with hysterics, got the whole Vida Team to sing a special African song to me and then made my latte with a little cinnamon heart in the foam and gave me an extra Lindt chocolate. I was actually so emotional I burst into tears.
That is why I love South Africa. The people. Ya, some of the suck and spoil it for the rest of us, but I can safely say that after spending 9 days, away from home, with 738 people from different African countries – there is no place like my home and no, wearing a cowboy hat does NOT make you feel like Jeff Probst and it will NOT make the African survivor experience any better.
Glad to be back (and also to have hot water)
Love bear
xxx
Survivor Dar es Salaam – Part 2
Part 2
Just because you wear a cowboy hat does not mean you will feel like Jeff Probst
Part 2 of my Dar trip saw the lack of arrival of our conference shipment from Cape Town. And by “lack of arrival” I actually mean “dirty pack of lies.” We had couriered over 800 kg’s via Air Freight from Cape Town over a month in advance. It was supposed to have arrived on the Wednesday. It went mysteriously “missing” - missing being code word for the package being left in customs for an extra week so it could be pilfered by thieves. Which it was. Ransacked. Sigh. Over the course of the week in which it was late, it was told various things – it had arrived at the hotel, but the hotel told them to take it away (hotel knows nothing about this); it is still stuck in customs; oh! The truck is on the way now (5hrs later); oh! the truck has broken down!; oh! The truck has been hijacked (serious). Sigh. We eventually got it back, after having 2 work two full conference days without all our stuff (read: Bear frantically printing out 5 months worth of conference preparation the night before..). Finally it all arrived, minus some hats and shirts (that are now proudly being sold on the side streets of Dar – because those cancer conference branded shirts are REALLY valuable and fashionable)
The same thing happened with our AV equipment – stuck in customs, never actually ever arrived! Luckily our AV crew had brought some excess baggage (R12,000 worth of excess baggage fees!) and we were able to make do with what few cables we had. It really was like, conference MacGyver. How to pull off a conference with a pack of paper, a pen and a network cable – GO! Sigh
Other notable moments include:
- Being viciously attacked giant sea crabs that rise out of sea, ly in wait for you to innocently walk past and then ambush you from behind a bush when you are walking alone at night. You could not even crush them with your foot because they were bigger than your feet (plural)
- Hotel screwing up our accommodation booking so I had to share a double bed with my colleague. Not the end of the world, luckily my colleague is a heavy sleeper and my chronic sinusitis did not seem to bother her much. Although in all fairness, we were so tired, we could have fallen asleep on the beach and it would have yielded the same effect.
- Having the Tanzanian President grace us with his presence, causing our programme to be delayed by 4 hours (the amount of time he was late). This means a programme that me and my boss had been working on for 18 months went completely out the window in the space of 4 hours. Sigh.
- Having lunchboxes made for me to eat EVERYDAY for NINE DAYS. This is not so bad – what was bad was the hotel’s need to put EVERYTHING (savoury and sweet) in one box.. think fried fish, lying cosily next to a stale croissant, which is snuggled up to a piece of unpeeled banana. Everything I ate tasted like banana for 9 days. I never want to see that yellow skinned bastard again.
- Coming home to our presidential suite to discover the air con making the most horrific noise ever. Too tired to call hotel to fix it, so turn it off. Lie down to discover it is dripping on our heads. Still too tired to call hotel. Turn heads and feet around so water drips on feet. Wake up in middle of night to discover drip has now turned into flood proportions. Colleague sleeps on couch in lounge. I turn my body vertically to avoid flood and go back to sleep. Fun times.
- My uniform of my red t-shirt made me look like a petrol attendant. Someone actually said that.
More to come later!
Survivor: Dar es Salaam – DAY 1
Hello all my wonderful minions,
Lord it is good to be home.
I have realised that if I want to give up my day job and become a full-time writer, I guess I need to spend some more time honing this blog thing……
Please find herein, Day One of my encounter in the African bush of Dar es Salaam. I was sent there for work on a cancer conference. The experience was.. very African. Please find details below.
NOTE: Excessive white female bitching below:
The past 9 days in Africa have honestly been pretty much the worst of my life. Not even the usually positive bear-attitude could even make things bright. For those of you who care; here is my summary of my experience – which I have fondly called “Survivor: Dar es Salaam.”
Day 1
The Tribe has spoken.
Started with a 4am airport pick up. To the airport. Where the new international departures terminal was opening. Fun times. Took 2 hours to check in. Everyone was grumpy and stressed. Again, it was also now 5am. Got stopped at xray machine and had a quick feel up. They also made me unpack my bag because they thought my pen was a screwdriver. Naturally.
6 hour trip to Dar. They forgot my veg meal. Nearly got arrested because refused to put my cowboy hat in stowage. Actually swore at air steward. Very grumpy at this stage. Watched in-flight movie. In-flight movie was stopped halfway because we landed. Couldn’t you have planned that better? Now I will never know the end to Night at the Museum Part 2. My life will remain eternally scarred.
Arrive in Dar. 40 degrees. Smelt like Africa. Badly.
Took 90min trip to 4 star hotel. 90mins turned out to be 2 hours. 4 star hotel turned out to be minus 4 stars.
Driving in Dar is quite an experience. There are no road markings. Cars feel the need to violently turn right whenever they feel like it. Goats roam the streets amongst the 5 (unmarked) lanes. Pretty much everyone just drives wherever the fuck they feel like it. (as do the goats). I had no safety belt. I was very afraid. My camera also did not feel like working, so I was forced to soak up the view.
Dar city is pretty much exactly like you would imagine it. People selling cigarettes, bananas and what I assume are drugs, litter the street. They have these rickshaw things (like in Durban) that weave out of the traffic. Deadly. Most of the places on the side of road in the city are mosques and shops made out of containers. They sell a lot of bottled water, goats, bicycles and lawn mowers. See picture attached. There are also a shed-load of palm trees. Unexpectedly. 
We arrive at the 4 star hotel. Which, during the course of these emails as you will soon discover, was anything but 4 stars – but maybe back in the days before electricity was invented. This is said with a heavy irony. It was soon discovered that whenever I took a shower, it would trip the geyser, which would trip the generator, which would violently cut off the power between our 2 “presidential” (yes) suites. I actually ended up keeping a candle permanently in the bathroom. It also was discovered that the hot water was turned off after 6am and 10pm. Fab for the environment. Not fab for conference organisers who wake up at 5am and return at midnight (20hr day are the norm) and you can’t have a warm shower. I cried once and then became exceptionally grumpy and used the f*word A LOT for the duration of the trip.
Must go now, will continue tomorrow
Fun times.
More spam I am…
oooh; gotta to love these spam mails.. they TOTALLY brighten up my day 
lol!
>>>>>>>>>>
Greetings from Jenny Lee,
after going through your information over the internet i decided to contact you for friendship and assistance for distribution of my inheritance towards charity. My name is Jenny Lee; I am a dying woman who has decided to donate what I have for the good work of charity. I am 60 years old and I was diagnosed for breast cancer for about 2 years now.
I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my late husband to you for the good work of God, rather than allow my husband evil relatives to use my husband hard earned funds ungodly. They don’t care about man kind, all they care is how to rob some money from me and spend them ungodly. Please pray that the good Lord forgives me my sins. I have asked God to forgive me and I believe he has because He is a merciful God. I will be going in for a surgery soon and I want to make sure that I make this donation before undergoing my surgery.
I decided to donate the sum of $2,500,000 (two million five hundred thousand dollars) to you for the good work of the lord, and also to help the motherless and less privilege and also for the assistance of the widows and unfortunate mothers. At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls right now due to the fact that my husband’s relatives are always around me and trying to see if they can overhear my conversations and my health status as well.
I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and please use the funds well and always extend the good work to others. I have informed my consultant about the ($2,500,000.00). it is true that I dont know you and you don’t know, but I have been directed by God to contact you for this. Thanks and God bless. I will direct you further after hearing from you.
NB: I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished as I don’t want anything that will jeopardize my wish. Also I will be contacting with you only by email as I don’t want my husband relations or anybody to know because they are always around me.
Reply me through this my most private email: (mrs.jenny21@yahoo.com.hk) Regards, Mrs. Jenny Lee
Don’t be a dooce
how funny is this….
There is actually a term in the Urban Dictionary for “when you lose your job because of your blog.” Yup. Seriously.
To get “dooced” can mean: Getting fired because of something that you wrote in your weblog; to be fired from your job from talking about it on your blog, to have all social hell break loose when people you know and/or family members finally find and read your blog.
wow… what facinating times we live in.. I wonder if you could get fired for chewing too much company band-width during working hours… ha ha.
i particually like how the word “dooce” sounds like my favourite word “douche”
Spam I am
ha ha ! check this spam I got in my email box this morning – it’s a total WINNER! ha ha. these things are so entertaining – I wonder if some people actually fall for them?
Hello,
How are you? i hope all is well with you, i hope you may not
know me, and i don’t know who you are, My Name is Miss Brenda khalifa i am just broswing now i just saw your profle it seams like some thing touches me all over my body, i started having some feelings in me which i have never experience in me before, so i became interested in you, l will also like to know you the more,and l want you to send an email to my email address
so l can give you my picture for you to know whom l am. I believe we can move from here! I am waiting for your mail to my email address above. (Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters
alot in life) miss Brenda
Blogging and Jeffery Deaver
I was going to write a blog about my creepy serial killer neighbour (or the other neighbour, a lesiban wood-carver / pot-grower)… but I am hust too tired and want to go home and go to bed…
blogs about interesting neighbours to follow shortly once I get internet connection in my new place…
BUT; anyone who is interested in reading a good book; should try Jeffery Deaver’s Road Side Crosses… it’s a murder mystery thriller, written by the guy who wrote the Bone Collector, and its all about online blogging and social networking and the blur between reality and the online realm. Very VERY cool book. He also references REAL websites in his book; which you can then log onto and read along with the book; offering clues as to the how the book will unravel. what a cool idea – its a totally three dimensonial book; with clues from every angle. I’m still only half way through it – it’s awesome!
til then
x
moving upwards and onwards
argh; moving house is such a shelp. and I still have so much to do!!! but instead of calculating the amount of money I have spent on things like appliances and furniture, I will rather write a blog about it all! (how very un-bear!)
moving going well. I think we are almost ready to move in… bed however only arriving on Friday due to Mr Price 3 day Stock Take (grrrr!)… so we will hopefully be settled by Friday night… and by settled I mean surrounded by boxes, with still a crap load of well, crap still in boxes at my mothers! oh well..
for 2 people who have lived together for already 3 years, we a) have a surprising large amount of crap collected over the years and b) still need to spend money on a surprisingly large amount of crap..
I also have lived on Woolworths pies, Mc D’s breakfasts, Wasabi dim sum and the Italien’s Kitchen’s food produces due to only getting the microwave today… my personal trainer is going to kick my ass
more to come soon… tomorrow the fridge is arriving… it does not fit through the doorway so we have to take down part of the wall.. (my landlord does not know of this creative plan)… let’s see how this goes..
I also think the old grouchy man next door will yeild plenty of blog material… the Trellidoor people were drilling for less than 2mins and he already asked us to keep it down..!!! ha – fat chance old topie. Plenty of blog fodder here I reckon.. although I will miss my neighbour’s barking dog! <click here for the previous post> ha ha (not)
Back to my usual bear…
wow. today I LAUGHED for the first time since all this drama with my family and doggy of 2 weeks ago… like really, really LAUGHED! and I am not ashamed to say it was at the expense of someone else (who is a giant douche)..
my nemesis… who I could fill PAGES of my blog about; just on his daily ridicolous antics (he follows me around the gym; comes to Fish’s restaurant even though we’ve told him to piss off.. you get the picture) – he’s always around making an ass out of himself… but that would be immature and childish and I’m a bigger person than that.. it is a SHAME really, cause some of the stuff I could write is golden! but…i’m going to break my rule just this once…
So today, I was at the gym, and HE always follows me and my trainer around.. like if we go upstairs, he’ll come up stairs, if I am working by a certain machine, he’ll come a do crunches RIGHT next to me (even though I have not spoken to him for a year or so.. loser)..
now, he is such a lurker, he comes to gym with this manky backpack, which he carries around everywhere! and like, he never does any exercise, he just walks around the gym like a 14yr old girl lurking at Cavendish, smiling maniacally at people trying to make friends. I watch it from my treadmill everyday – hysterical. better than TV. but he never comes to gym to actually exercise.
so… today, he came and was doing crunches right by us (and said afterwards ” wow, that was like giving childbirth” – , I mean, bitch, please! – and then he got up and left (backpack in tow)…
Now to understand this joke, you must understand this turd’s hair.. it’s like Joey from FRIENDS, in 1991, with a truck load of grease from the movie GREASE ^2 x John Travolta in the 70’s kinda-greasy hair. And then he slicks it back.. I think he think it makes him feel like Quentin Tarantino or something (explains his usual 90’s get up of black polo-neck and leather jacket)…
In fact, his hair looks EXACTLY like this:
EXACTLY like this, but a bit longer, more mullet-esque
WOW, this was supposed to be a short post, but now I’ve opened up the bitch-fest I can’t seem to stop…. oh well, let’s continue!
So I say to my trainer… “I wonder what he keeps in that backpack that he carries around all the time…” and she goes:
“maybe it’s a giant comb for his slicked back hair”
OMG i laughed so hard, I fell off my stability ball and hit the wall!!! but it was so worth it.
<ok, I know it’s probably more hysterical if you actually know the guy (like some of you do – but I feel better anyway – and that’s all that matters >
Maybe if I lose the moral high ground, I will share some more stories of my nemesis sometime
